Disclaimers - Star Trek and all the characters used in this story are owned by Paramount/Viacom. I am simply adding my own little spin on events and letting the characters have a little more fun then they normally are allowed to do.

Mary Sue Fails

by Riss

As Captain Janeway came out of her ready room, the bridge was quiet. Commander Chakotay looked up from the report he was reading, sending her one of his 'all clear' looks. On the other hand, Lieutenant Paris, who had been quite bored with today's piloting in a straight line, shot her a 'get me out of here' look. Maybe she should send him down to Sickbay to continue his studies with the Doctor. Actually, on second thought, not only would it be too cruel to the Doctor, but the last time Mr. Paris put in an extra shift in Sickbay, the Doctor's bedside manner actually got worse. Ensign Kim was daydreaming while running his fifth diagnostic of the day. Even Lieutenant Commander Tuvok was looking a little, inattentive. For once, the Starship Voyager was traveling through a quiet section of space.

Of course, it wouldn't last. In the previous five years that Voyager had journeyed through the Delta Quadrant, no more than one week had passed without either losing a shuttle, being attacked, or having the warp drive fail again.

Currently, it's been over a month since they've even damaged a shuttle. The cause was helped considerably by keeping Chakotay away from the shuttle bays. They'd encountered and engaged in friendly trading with four different species in the last few weeks. Neelix did a wonderful job as ambassador, contacting and negotiating with these groups.

Even Lieutenant Torres had reasons to be happy. While trading with the Xalli, Voyager was able to remain in a safe orbit for over a week. Ever since the refits that she presided over, the warp core has been humming. B'Elanna hasn't had to work a double shift in almost two weeks. Both Lieutenant Carey and Tom are overjoyed at that fact. Lieutenant Carey due to B'Elanna's prolonged absence from looking over his shoulder during the night shift, and Tom because now he, instead of the warp engines, occupied her time.

As Janeway looked around the bridge, she knew the calm wouldn't persist. Voyager's luck was never this good. They were only thirty minutes away from a supply rendezvous, so something was bound to go wrong. The second she started to sit down in her chair she was proven right as Harry made the first warning call.

"Captain, I'm detecting a ship at the edge of long range sensors."

"Mr. Tuvok?" Both Janeway and Tuvok knew what she wanted. After so much time working together, no explanation was necessary.

"The ship type matches the patterns which the Xalli gave Voyager for the Zenodes. Their shields are raised and I am reading a buildup of energy in the ship. They are ignoring our standard hails."

Chakotay jumped in with a question, since Tuvok's explanation was typical in its lack of direct information. "Are their weapons powered?"

"I am unable to determine that, Commander."

Harry quieted the disagreement between the two of them by providing his own assessment of the other ship. "The energy buildup seems to be fueling some strange type of weapons system.

Can you identify it Commander?"

Again Tuvok gave a negative answer, "It is unfamiliar, perhaps Lieutenant Torres might offer an opinion."

"Janeway to Torres."

"Torres here. Is something the matter Captain?"

"B'Elanna, take a look at the energy readings on the approaching vessel."

"Sure Captain." It only took a moment until B'Elanna realized that something strange was occurring on that vessel. "Is that a weapons system?"

"We were hoping that you could tell us."

"Give me five minutes to check on a few readings."

Harry broke in with a update on the other ship's position. "They'll be in weapons range in ten minutes."

"OK, B'Elanna you have your five minutes. Janeway out."

"Captain, I'd like to move the ship closer to the asteroid field. I'll have more maneuvering room." Tom was worried about the close timing. Five minutes is really not that much time when fighting a possibly superior enemy. Plus he knew there was no way that Janeway would let them leave the system, further cutting the margin for error.

"You have free rein on the helm controls, Mr. Paris." Then, noticing the wicked smile forming on his lips, she qualified her statement. "Within reason Lieutenant."

Tom's only acknowledgment was a, "yes, ma'am," said the way that only Tom Paris can say those two words.

"Torres to Bridge."

"Go ahead B'Elanna."

"I'm not sure exactly what it will do to this ship, but the modulations will punch right through our shields."

"Can you remodulate the shields?"

"The calculations will take at least half an hour. The computer's working on it, but Tom will need to buy us some time, Captain."

The turbolift doors opened and B'Elanna stepped out, headed toward the bridge engineering station. However, first she caught Tom's eye. "Just don't cause too much damage, I'd like the shields to work when you're done."

Tom just smiled, a 'what me' expression on his face. Of course, no one believed his innocent expression for even a second. However, in the last few months, Tom's flying had caused relatively little damage to engineering systems. He learned his lesson when B'Elanna kept canceling dinner dates to repair his damage.

Janeway followed B'Elanna to the engineering station, curious as to the modifications. After a quick look at the calculations, satisfied that they were the best they could come up with Janeway headed back to her seat. She was almost there when Tuvok called out a status report.

"One minute to weapons range."

"Red Alert."

Immediately after Janeway spoke, Tom began evasive maneuvers. As the ship quickly sped up and veered toward the asteroid belt, everyone was jolted around. Luckily everyone on the bridge was uninjured, except for their pride. As Janeway got up out of Chakotay's lap where she had landed, she sent one of her 'death glares' at the back of Tom's head. "Mr. Paris, a little warning would be greatly appreciated in the future."

Tom answered her, though his voice sounded more like he was trying to choke back laughter, rather then apologizing. "Yes ma'am. Initiating evasive maneuvers now." As soon as he finished those words, the vessel began threading its way through the asteroid belt. Voyager was soon skimming the tops and bottoms of the passing asteroids at nearly full impulse. As soon as the pursuing ship entered the field behind them, Tom took them even closer to the asteroids. At one point, he even took the ship through a large gap in one of the asteroids. Tuvok almost lost his composure as he looked at his readings during that maneuver. There had been less then three meters of space on each side of the vessel.

The inertial dampers were enough to handle almost all of Tom's maneuvers, allowing the crew a relatively smooth ride. Of course it was relative only to the other times Tom was allowed to have fun at the conn. It was looking at the viewscreen and following what he was doing that had most of the crew praying to keep down Neelix's breakfast, which was bad enough the first time. One ensign who was assisting Harry at Ops didn't keep his eyes off the viewscreen enough, and found himself exiting the bridge in quite a hurry.

The wild maneuvers seemed to be working. While the Zenode ship was still following them, it was going through the asteroid field at a much more sedate pace. Tom's piloting had already given them a four minute lead on the pursuers. If it wasn't for the appointment they had with traders in this system, they would have gone to warp. However, the supplies consisted of vital engineering components and large quantities of a bean that was remarkably close to earth coffee. Janeway would probably allow for even heavy damage to Voyager if it would mean a respite from Neelix's vile brew.

At some point during the chase, Seven of Nine entered the bridge. Only her borg enhanced sense of balance allowed her to remain upright on the careening ship. Though, at one point she did need to grab a console for support, almost dropping the padd she was carrying in the process. Only the threat of Janeway's glare, and B'Elanna's wrath in the case of Tom, kept the male complement of the bridge from rushing to her aide.

Seven headed straight for the engineering station and brought B'Elanna's wrath down on herself. Looking at B'Elanna's screen over her shoulder, it took only a moment for her to process the computer's calculations. Reaching for the console, pushing B'Elanna away at the same time, Seven took her life into her hands.

"These calculations are ill-conceived and will fail."

Most of the other crew members would take a second to realize Seven's borg enhanced strength, step aside and attempt to reason with her. An angry half-Klingon B'Elanna Torres was not the ordinary crew member. She was not about to take Seven's rudeness lightly. Moving Seven away with a shove of her own, B'Elanna scanned the readouts for signs of disruptions.

"Excuse me, I was using this console."

"Lieutenant Torres. Your calculations for the shield modifications are illogical. I have the correct calculations here." Seven paused a moment in attempt to phrase the next request correctly, "You should move aside and allow me to input them into this console."

Only the fact that the entire bridge crew was staring at her kept B'Elanna from physically lashing out at Seven. Reining in her temper, but still angry with Seven's attitude, she held out her hand for the padd Seven was holding. When Seven made no move to hand it over, B'Elanna swallowed even more of her anger and asked in an almost calm tone, "May I please see them."

Janeway had not been standing idly by as the scene transpired before them. She had vacated her chair and moved toward the engineering station. Just as she was a step away from the console, Tom made another sharp, uncompensated turn to the right. Janeway lost her balance and fell into Seven, who could not hold up the unexpected weight and both crashed into B'Elanna.

Despite his concentration on piloting, Tom was not oblivious to the results of his actions. In the apologetic tone that only Tom could actually pull off, he attempted to atone for his actions. After all, B'Elanna was known to break the bones of people she was mad at, and being her lover only encouraged that habit. "I'm sorry, Captain. I know, give a little warning next time."

The women righted themselves, despite another sharp turn of the ship. Janeway made sure to insert herself in between the other two women. B'Elanna was just angry enough to hit someone, which would not help in their current situation. Holding her hand out for the padd, Janeway sent one of her famous looks Seven's way, letting her know that refusing was not an option.

Holding Seven's padd so that B'Elanna could follow along, Janeway examined Seven's data. Judging by the expressions on the women's faces, they were confused by the outcome of the calculations. Neither had seen anything like it before.

Seven saw their confusion and with what B'Elanna would have sworn was a sigh, began her explanation. "The calculations are a simple modification of the borg principle of adaptive shields. Using the sensor data gathered as the Zenode ship fires and the accelerated processing capability of the bio-neural gel packs, it is able to immediately adapt Voyager's shields to stop the attack."

While Janeway seemed to accept the idea, B'Elanna voiced her concerns. "The computer is not fast enough to process it in the seconds available before their weapon reaches our shields."

"This program includes a rerouting of all non-critical functions to the secondary core as well as a shutdown of warp power. The Astrometric sensors provide faster readings as well." Despite Seven's even delivery, none of the modifications were minor. Despite their desire to complete the trade, they still wanted to retain their ability to escape.

B'Elanna was certain the plan would fail and tried to convince the Captain of that. "Captain, I don't believe the gelpacks can process the information fast enough. We should wait..."

The rest of her comments were cut off by a report from Harry. "Captain, the Xalli trading ship has just entered the system."

Janeway quickly made her decision. "Send them a message that we will meet with them in a few minutes."

Tuvok's report dispelled any further doubts which Janeway might have harbored. "One minute to weapon's range."

"Lieutenant Torres, load Seven's modifications into the computer and activate them."

Knowing that further arguments would only get her kicked off the bridge and put on report, B'Elanna complied with the Captain's orders, to the letter. However, since she had not been told otherwise, she kept her program with a minute and a half left till it provided its own results, running in the background.

"Thirty seconds to weapon's range," Tuvok's emotionless voice reported just a few seconds before Seven's program activated.

Immediately chaos reined on the bridge. First to go down was everything but the emergency lighting. Then came Tom's panicked voice from the front of the bridge, "Primary helm control off line. Secondary controls are not initializing. All I have available is maneuvering thrusters!"

Harry made the call since Tuvok's sensors were also not operational, "Brace for impact."

Everyone grabbed on to their consoles and held on for dear life. A good thing since the inertial dampers were one of the non-critical systems and Tom made a last ditch effort with the thrusters to avoid the blast. Throwing full power into the port thrusters, the ship careened starboard, avoiding most of the blast. A good thing since it passed right through the shields unmolested.

Rather than vaporize like a phaser or disrupter, it disrupted all energy discharges, including communication between the gelpacks. Tuvok began summarizing the damage. "Targeting lock off line, though phasers are operational. Port sensors, warp nacelles, and most EPS conduits are off-line."

Tom did have some good news, "Secondary helm controls on line, initiating evasive pattern Paris two."

However, it was B'Elanna who had the best news. "Initializing shield modifications. I'm sending targeting data to Commander Tuvok and Mr. Paris. If we hit them as they fire, their shields drop for four seconds. Continuous phaser fire should take out that beam."

Tuvok was skeptical. "Shields are only at thirty percent."

"The modifications will hold against another glancing blow. As long as Tom gets us out of there fast enough, we'll be fine."

Tuvok seemed convinced and looked to Janeway for her OK. Tom shouted out his readiness since he was busy trying to avoid getting hit. "Just tell me when and where."

Seeing that it was their only option, Janeway quickly agreed. "Harry, route as much power to the shields as possible. Tom, take us in."

Chakotay took a second to warn the rest of the ship, "All hands brace for impact."

Tuvok gave the first status report. "They're firing, targeting manually and returning fire."

As the ship careened toward the port side, Tom shouted out his report, "Evading fire."

Next was B'Elanna, "Shields failing in five seconds."

"We got them!"

Tuvok clarified Harry's excited shout, "The Zenode weapon's array has been destroyed. They are retreating. Only minor damage to the shields from their fire. Port sensors and warp nacelles are back on-line."

With a huge smile, Janeway gave her next orders. "Open a channel to the Xalli ship and tell them I am looking forward to a nice steaming cup of coffee."